from the dead.  The idea of God’s having a son of a woman did not shock them, for all their demigods they believed had been so begotten; and a great part of their poems are filled with the exploits and the sufferings of these heroes, who are at length rewarded by being raised from earth to heaven, as Jesus is said to have been.  These doctrines were not disrelished by the common people, but were rejected by the wise and learned.  Accordingly we see that Paul could make nothing of the philosophers of Athens, who derided him, and considered him as telling them a story similar to those of their own mythology, when he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.  And in revenge, we see Paul railing against both the stubborn Jews, and the incorrigible philosophers, as being unworthy of knowing “the hidden wisdom,” which was to the one “a stumbling block,” and to the other, “foolishness,” and which he thought fit only for “the babes,” and “the devout women,” with whom he principally dealt.

That the New Testament inculcates an excellent morality, cannot be denied; for its best moral precepts were taken from the Old Testament.  And if the Apostles had not preached good morals, how could they have expected to be considered by the Gentiles as messengers from God?  For if they had inculcated any immoralities, such as rebellion, murder, adultery, robbery, revenge, their mission would not only have been disbelieved, but they would have undergone capital punishment by the sentence of the judge, which it was their business to avoid.  Mahomet, throughout the Koran, inculcates all the virtues, and pointedly reprobates vice of all kinds.  His morality is merely the precepts of the Old and New Testaments, modified a little, and expressed in Arabic.  They are good precepts, and always to be listened to with respect, wherever, and by whomsoever, inculcated.  But surely that will not prove Islamism to be from God, nor that Mahomet was his prophet!

That the Apostles suffered death on account of their preaching the gospel, if allowed to be fact, as said before, proves nothing.  Many have suffered death for false and absurd doctrines.  “But whether any of the Apostles, (besides James who was slain by Herod,) died a natural, or a violent death, the learned Christians do not certainly know.  For there is extant no authentic history of the Apostles, besides the Acts.  There are indeed many fabulous narrations published by the Papists, called Martyrologies, stuffed with the most extravagant lies, which no learned man now regards; and who therefore will credit what such books say of the Apostles?  Peter is said in them to have been put to death at Rome by Nero, nevertheless most of the learned men of the Protestants assert, that Peter never was in Rome, and as for Paul, no one certainly knows where, when, or how ho finished his days.  So that if we were even to allow the feeble argument of Martyrdom, all the influence and weight given to it, it would not apply to the Apostles, who, we are sure, derived some benefit, by preaching the gospel, and are not sure that they came to any harm by it.